The post Create a New Company in Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 appeared first on Dynamics 101.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV allows you to have an unlimited number of companies within the same database. All companies share the same object customizations (for example, custom fields, reports, and posting modifications). However, the data in each company is separate. This means the setup tables, master records, and transactions in each company will be kept completely separate.
You might wish to create a new company in Microsoft Dynamics NAV for any number of reasons. Perhaps there are multiple legal entities within your organization and you wish to keep the records for each entity separate. Maybe you wish to create a duplicate of your current NAV company for testing or training purposes. Whatever your reasoning may be, if you would like to create a new company in NAV 2015, go to Departments> Administration> ITAdministration> General> Companies:
Once there, you will find two options in the HomeTab in the ribbon at the top of the page that will enable you to complete this task. Depending on your desired outcome, each of these options could be very useful.
- The New Company functionality creates a company with no data, no customers, no vendors, no settings, no dimensions, nothing. It produces a brand new, completely blank entity ready for you to configure as you like.
- The Copy Company functionality creates an exact duplicate of another company in your database. It will pull in not only all of the settings and dimensions you may have, but also all of the data, such as sales documents, purchase documents, and journal entries that are in the previous entity.
The Copy Company functionality may not be the best choice if, for any reason, you wish to create a company with the same exact setup as one of your existing companies, but with none of the existing data; you would have to go back through the new company and manually delete all of the documents and entries. If your license does not allow you to delete posted documents or ledger entries, your Microsoft Partner would need to delete these records for you. However, if you do wish to create a new company populated with your current settings and documents (e.g. for testing purposes), this functionality could be a great asset.
If, at the time the initial company in the database is created with the New Company functionality, you know that you will need additional entities in the same database with the same settings, but different data, it would be prudent to save a blank company in the system as a template. After the company has been set up, but prior to any data entry, you could use the Copy Company functionality to create a company to work in while leaving the original company blank. That way, you will have a blank company already set up with your desired settings that is ready to be duplicated as needed.
Alternately, you could also use NAV 2015’s RapidStart Services to create a new entity based on a configuration package from another entity. RapidStart is a predefined default setup based on the needs of most companies. Therefore, it may not meet your specific needs. In addition, RapidStart cannot be used to set up certain types of data, such as journal templates, dimensions, location codes, and users, because that data is considered to be too specialized to be defaulted during the setup process. It is significantly more user-friendly than the New Company functionality, but still requires more manual setup than using the Copy Company functionality.